Of Renewal
by Jedi Trace
Summary: Missing moment from the final chapter of The Last Command. This is my attempt to reconcile Luke’s relinquishment of his father’s lightsaber in a nonromantic fashion.


Title: Of Renewal  
Author: Jedi Trace  
Timeframe: Final chapter of The Last Command  
Characters: Luke Skywalker  
Genre: Vignette  
Keywords: Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, Anakin Skywalker  
Summary: This is my attempt to reconcile Luke's relinquishment of his father's lightsaber in a non-romantic fashion. ;)

Disclaimer: Just playing in Zahn's sandbox, owned by George.

Thanks for reading!

For you, **rhonderoo!** Thanks for the bunny and the encouragement.

* * *

Luke Skywalker stood on the balcony of his Coruscant apartment, mesmerized by the city planet's traffic and lights. Their return from Wayland and the ugly business with Joruus C'baoth had left him restless, and he thought of his infant nephew and niece with an unexpected sense of insecurity. They were growing so fast. Before long, it would be time to begin training them. 

_When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be._

Yoda's words weighed heavy on his heart. It had been over five years and, with the establishment of the New Republic, there had been no chance to solidify his plans for a Jedi Academy. Perhaps his agitation was a sign that now was the time.

His thoughts turned immediately to his newest and only student, though she would probably give him an earful if he addressed her as such. In spite of her service to the late Emperor, she could easily become a Jedi. Well, perhaps 'easy' wasn't the word. He couldn't imagine that anything with her would ever be easy.

She was one of the most stubborn, guarded, and reserved people he'd ever met. Though she had reason to be, he supposed. If she actually was who she said she was.

On a hunch, he went inside and settled in front of the communications center. Years ago, he had conducted a Holo Net search about his father and studied all the information he could find about Anakin Skywalker, a good deal of which had been confirmed during Han and Leia's trip to Tatooine in their pursuit of the _Killik Twilight._

He stared at the screen and shrugged. _Why not?_ Keying for a search on "Mara Jade," he sat back and waited. She had claimed that there would be no records of her Imperial service.

The search result flashed on the screen: _NEGATIVE_. Luke raised his eyebrows – she'd been right. Of course she would be. Mara was many things, but as far as he could tell, she was not a liar.

Trying a different approach, he keyed for a search on "Emperor Palpatine," and was immediately rewarded with screen after screen full of holos and Imperial propaganda. He flicked through the holos – most of them involving state functions – pausing only at the occasional image of Darth Vader standing beside the Emperor.

He was about to give up when the holo of what looked to be a formal banquet caught his eye. The Emperor sat in the center of a raised dais surrounded by royal guards, finely dressed court officials, and – he zoomed in close – a young woman standing in front and just to the left of his father's distinctive form.

She was wearing a simple, dark gown and her red hair was pulled back sharply from her face, but there was no mistaking a younger version of the cool, neutral expression he'd come to associate with Mara Jade's face.

She couldn't have been much more than a teenager at the time, but she stood between the two dark lords as if it were the most natural place in the galaxy.

Perhaps, for her, it had been. Luke regarded the holo thoughtfully. Mara, like his father, had been loyal to the Emperor to a fault. And his father had broken free. Luke had no doubt that Mara could do the same.

_Pass on what you have learned._

If nothing else, he had learned that it was possible to change- for good…or bad.

A strange impulse began to prod at the back of his mind. There on the desk lay his old lightsaber. The one Ben had given him back on Tatooine, lost with his right hand, and now retrieved again from his fallen clone.

He picked it up and absently began to polish the silver hilt with a soft cloth. Keying for a saved image, his favorite, Luke studied a holo of Anakin Skywalker from the Clone Wars: "The Hero with No Fear," he'd been called. The very hilt Luke held in his hands hung on Anakin Skywalker's belt.

Before the fall. Before the darkness that had claimed his father for over twenty years.

He switched back to the holo of Mara and the Emperor. Though not a Sith, the dark would most certainly call for her again. He had felt the pressure of the Emperor's voice in her head many times. He'd seen the haunted, tortured expression on her face when she thought he wasn't looking. He'd heard the sheer _power_ of that wretched voice that had jolted her from sleep and knocked her to her knees.

A lifetime of thought patterns and behaviors do not change overnight. Even with the voice gone, she could be years, perhaps a lifetime working through what Palpatine had done to her.

And Luke would not always be there to help. He grimaced. _Not that she'd accept his help, anyway._

To someone else he might offer words of edification, but Mara wasn't much for philosophy. She was more of a hands-on type of person.

She would not accept words of Jedi wisdom, but she might accept something else - a symbol.  
Luke turned the saber hilt over in his hands.

He wondered, not for the first time, if his father had recognized the sword that Luke had wielded against him on Bespin. Had Vader, in a strike against Anakin Skywalker, cast the weapon from Luke for a purpose more focused than merely disarming his opponent, in effect, severing the past?

Severing the past….

His whole life, Luke had held on to the past - cherishing the childhood dreams of his dead father then brandishing the ideals of that man against the dark lord himself.

His first impulse was to put his father's lightsaber away in a security vault for safekeeping until… until when? Leia did not want it and Luke now preferred the saber he had built in Obi-Wan Kenobi's hut.

A crucible away from the naiveté of his youth, he could not afford to put the past on a pedestal or leave it inert. The Jedi order would never be reborn in the shadow of darkness. It must be reclaimed- redeemed, as the man who had built this sword so many years ago.

Though Mara would certainly scoff at such sentiments, she could appreciate a token of transformation…of renewal. Severed from her own past, she was now free to start a new life apart from the Emperor's manipulation.

Putting a finishing shine on the silver hilt of his old lightsaber, Luke tucked it into the front of his tunic and headed for the Palace roof.

He would offer her a talisman of the Old Order as the beginning of the New. It was time reclaim his father's heritage and time to move on…for both of them.

-END-


End file.
